[NOTE 101.]
A. I. S. V. Pamphilus, Mysis.
This scene contains the third and last part of the narration, which is entirely pathetic, and its length is very artificially and successfully relieved by the figure called by the Greeks προσωποποια, which is introduced with so many moving and pathetic graces, as afford ample proof that Terence was as great a master of the passions, as even Trabea, Attilius, and Cæcilius themselves, who were so highly extolled by the ancients for their excellence in compositions of that nature. Terence has admirably relieved the necessary length of his narration in this play, by his judicious method of dividing it: the first part is serious, (vide [Note 65],) and raises our curiosity: the second part is comic, (vide [Note 89],) and excites our laughter; the third part is pathetic, and moves our pity. The lines in which Pamphilus describes the death of Chrysis are so extremely moving, that some of the most eminent critics have considered them at least equal, if not superior, to all attempts in the pathetic both ancient and modern. The finest passage in M. Baron’s Andrienne is, (in my opinion,) his imitation of the before-mentioned speech of Pamphilus: and the inimitable beauty which so much strikes us in the French copy ought to impress us with a just idea of the splendid merit of the Latin original.
The whole speech is too long to be inserted here, the following are extracts:
“Si je m’en souviendrai! Qui? moi? Toute ma vie.
Ce que me dit Chrysis parlant de Glicérie,
Elle me dit, (Misis j’en verse encore des pleurs.)
Elle est jeune, elle est belle, elle est sage, et je meurs.
Je vous conjure donc par sa main que je tiens;
Par la foi, par l’honneur, par mes pleurs, par les siens;
Par ce dernier moment qui va finir, ma vie,